


The Acorn

by Gerbilfriend



Category: Ranger's Apprentice - John Flanagan
Genre: Gen, Quietly, rangers adopt people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:01:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24121000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gerbilfriend/pseuds/Gerbilfriend
Summary: Jenny questions one of the Rangers passing through
Comments: 10
Kudos: 37





	The Acorn

**Author's Note:**

> I'll probably get back to my normal Sunday updates next week (at least for BfBS), it was finals so I've just been running wild. Recently (if my other posting hasn't hinted, I have fallen into back Ranger's Apprentice. Thanks to drowned-in-wips on the Ranger Corps discord server for the idea of calling Jenny's restaurant the Acorn.

Jenny took a breath, things were stable inside. She could no longer use that as an excuse,  _ also,  _ she realized as she watched the man saddle his horse, if he was anything like Will he had known that Jenny was there.

“You’re not the first Ranger that’s come through here?”.

Her guess was true, the ranger turned his head to face her, “what makes you say I’m a Ranger?”.

“You move like Will does”.

The ranger laughed, it was a bright, warm sound. Something in Jenny relaxed a little. “Me’in Will move alike, huh. I’ll keep that in mind. You’re right, I’m not the first Ranger to come through here”.

The next question came easier. “You’re not the first ranger to help me out, are you?”.

“Perceptive, aren’t you?”.

“Cooks have to be able to keep watch of everything in their kitchen”. Jenny answered promptly.

The ranger nodded slightly. “Rangers pass through her sometimes and It’s not in our nature not to intervene when we see something going on”.

“That doesn’t explain the acorns”.

“Acorns?”.

The ranger sounded innocent. If Jenny hadn’t grown up hearing Will use a similar tone about numerous pranks than she might have believed him. “Like I said, cook. Rangers don’t have the market cornered on perceptiveness. Everytime a Ranger came through I would see a new one carved”. It might take her a while to find it, true, but they were there. “People have even started calling my restaurant The Acorn because of it”.

“They have?”. He sounded surprised. Jenny wasn’t buying it, yet again, too much time with Will as a child.

“I just want to know why?”.

“Why?”.

“Why my restaurant?”.

The Ranger sighed. It was a good sigh, once that truly expressed dissatisfaction with the universe, then he dismounted.

Unsurprisingly, he was short once off the horse. “Will mentioned your pies at the last time we met. He’s talked about you before”.

“That’s why? Because I’m friends with Will?”. It was such a small reason for Rangers to spend time checking in on her when they passed through.

The Ranger cocked his head. “You aren’t scared of me. I can tell. You aren’t scared of Will either”.

“Of course not, he’s Will”. And for every new story about him, for every rumor about the rangers Jenny could think of one of her own stories about Will.

“Not all of us are lucky enough to have friends that stick around when we become Rangers”.

_ Did that happen to this Ranger?  _ “What do you like in your coffee?”. It was a question that every Ranger had an isticitve answer too.

Sure enough, “Sugar”, the Ranger said, fast enough to be instinctual. For a moment Jenny thought the Ranger had been taken aback by the question.

“Wait here”. She had spent enough time around Will to know what Ranger’s like, and an army marched on it's stomach, Jenny might not have fought in the second war against Morgawrath but she sure as hell had cooked for the army, she knew what food traveled. It was the work of a few moments to fill a skin with coffee and wrap up some food”.

“Here. Coffee for the road, and those should keep for breakfast”.

“Thank you”. 

Jenny could hear the question in the response. “You helped me out, seems only fair. Ride well”. Then the Ranger was off. 

Jenny headed back into the Acorn, it was time to start buying more coffee beans.

  
  



End file.
